1900s in Angola - Slavery and Conquest

Slavery and Conquest

The price of rubber declined in the 1900s, prompting a revolt in 1902. The uprising, the last attempt by the Ovimbundu peoples to resist Portuguese colonization, pitted rival traders against one another. However, while the Portuguese maintained ethnic and national solidarity, the Ovimbundu continued to engage in slave raids. The Portuguese suppressed the rebellion and annexed the Central Highlands. Degregado settlers and Boer farmers stole natives' lands, impressing and deporting workers to plantations. Portuguese authorities arrested the king of Bailundo after an Ovimbundu celebration in which natives consumed Portuguese rum, allegedly without paying. The king's advisor, Mutu ya Kevela, allied with Bailundo's neighboring kingdoms and launched a liberation war. He told his council, rallying them to fight, "Before the traders came we had our own home-brewed beer, we lived long lives and were strong." Kevela's troops killed Portuguese colonists and burned down their trading posts. Native victories spread towards Bié, but Portuguese troops stationed in Benguela and Moçâmedes put down the revolt. The war ended in 1903, almost two years later, with the Portuguese victorious and Kevela dead.

Thomas Fowell Buxton, at the time a member (and later President) of the Aborigines' Protection Society, wrote to Portugal's representatives in the United Kingdom in December 1902, inquiring about the state and extent of slavery in Angola. The Portuguese government replied to his letter in February 1903, denying the existence of slavery its colonies and deriding the "imagination of certain philanthropists."

In 1904, the Kwanyama Ovambo defeated the Portuguese, eradicating the Portuguese force with assistance from German-run South-West Africa which wanted to wrest control of Angola from the Portuguese. In 1905 the population grew to just under 11,000. The population of Boer and Madeiran colonists in Lubango grew to 2,000 in 1904.

In 1914, due to the Mbunda resistance to Portuguese colonial occupation, when the Portuguese colonialists abducted the twenty first (21st) Mbunda Monarch, King Mbandu Lyondthzi Kapova (Kathima Mishambo), the Mbunda waged a fierce armed campaigns in defending their Mbundaland, southeast of Angola. Technology however, aided the Portuguese forces in gaining an upper hand in the war as they had a constant supply of gunpowder for their guns. Without the knowledge to make gunpowder, the Mbunda eventually found their muzzle-loaders useless and increasingly relied on their bows and arrows as well as a few other traditional arms which were suited for close contact warfare. The Portuguese firepower took a heavy toll of the Mbunda, some of whom started to throw their muzzle-loaders in the rivers for lack of gunpowder. The Portuguese eventually dislodged the Mbunda Kingdom extending Angola territory over Mbundaland.